To Have Loved You Sooner
by blueroseulan
Summary: UPDATED.A collection of little romantic oneshots set after the epilogue. Chapter 2: Scars. Her thoughts are abruptly stopped when he suddenly presses the knife in her palms. "Cut me." His voice is shaking, but with no doubt. "Cut me, love, so I would know that everything is still real."
1. Prayer

April 24, 2012/04/24

A/N: A Collection of romantic oneshots. I'll hand out frosted cookies to those who review and drop one word-theme challenges.

I don't own The Hunger Games.

Chapter 1: Prayer

She`s never believed in gods, nor in prayers.

_The moment he steps into the moonlight, she momentarily forgets to breathe. Each plane on his muscled chest, each scar that serves to perfect his form rather than to flaw, and each strand of his flaxen hair is coated with a shimmer of sheen silver that for a heartbeat she finds it fair to consider the possibility that this beautiful man, perfect in more ways than one, has stepped somewhere within bounds of immortality._

When you know that the course of your life is being dictated not by the unknown, but by a very powerful hand seated within the Capitol, the idea of mercy and compassion is colored out by novelty and whim.

_His sapphire irises are fathomless and beckoning as he lowers himself to her. She is compelled to grab his hand and press it to her cheek to show her reverence. When his lips find hers, it is all she can do not to weep; for his benevolence is too much and his love cannot be surpassed. _

She knows about religion of course. What no living proofs could testify for, books have taught her. And yet, it is inevitable for her people to misunderstand. When survival dangles precariously over the brink of life and death on a daily basis, salvation is a personal burden one has no other choice but to bear.

_He is warm and pulsing and everything that life should ever be when he buries himself inside her in one swift stroke. And all at once she is trembling, and all at once her soul has surged forward in a desperate grasp for the only remaining sliver of salvation in her life—him. When pale muscled arms come up to grasp her form impossibly closer to his, the jagged edges of the world fade away and she forgets where her damnation ends and her devotion begins. _

There had only been two instances when she found herself praying to a god she had long since deemed to be non-existent: once for her father and once for Prim. When the heavens had remained silent to her pleas, making the decision to take matters in her own hands came in the form of instinct. This time, there would neither be useless devotions nor silly prayers; there would only be determination and strength as she fights to keep one more person safe—her boy with the bread.

_Her name leaves his lips in a blessed whisper as she frantically clings to him. It`s too much—he`s too much. Every fibre of her being thrums for him, every nerve pulses and sings in desire and pleasure as he careens inside her, frantically, breathlessly. When his lithe fingers cleverly snake inside her to rub that most delicate nub, she is awash by a blinding light, a surge of heat. When their worlds collide, his name naturally touches her lips like a desperate prayer, every breathless syllable reverberating in the four corners of the dark room as she calls upon him over and over again in throes of passion and pleasure. _

She`s never believed in gods nor prayers.

_But when the tumultuous storm has passed and he lies beside her, breathless, spent, a vision covered in a silvery sheen of sweat and yet with that perpetual smile on his lips, and he asks her that single, hopeful question, she has enough conviction and blind faith in her heart that no god could have ever hoped to gather from such a scarred soul as hers:_

_`You love me, real or not real?"_

"_Real."_


	2. Scars

April 25, 2012

_Chapter 2: Scars_

"I promise you," she murmurs softly, punctuating her words with a light kiss on his jaw, "there would be no more scars for us."

She wakes up one night to realize that her fears have finally caught up on her.

He sits on the edge of the bed, shoulders poised in perfect agitation, his calloused fingers digging into his scalp. He gnashes his teeth to stifle his cries and yet his tremor comes off in terrible waves. Hidden in the crook of his arm, his azure irises are dulled with pain and tears.

Her boy with the bread… her beautiful, beautiful boy with the bread.

She steels herself not to cry. She is determined to see him through this. He had suffered so much, had given so much—if not everything- for her, that staying beside him during his episodes pales in comparison with what horrors that he had seen for her. Carefully, gently, she grasps his shoulders and forces him to look at her, ignoring the steady thud of fear at the pit of her stomach.

She does the only thing she knows that can call him back from the whirlpool of oblivion the Capitol has damned him to.

She presses her lips to his and prays that it works; because it has always worked… and if it doesn't, then all hell can freeze over and she`d still be at a loss for what to do.

She wakes up one night to realize that her fears have finally caught up on her.

His trembling stops, if only for a moment, and then he is shuddering violently once again, his sobs wracking his muscled form as he doubles in pain. "Katniss…" he whispers brokenly. "I don't think anything of this is real anymore."

She doesn't understand him, nor what he`s trying to say. What did _anything _stand for? Their broken and patched up relationship? Their pathetic attempt for a normal life?

She doesn't understand him and yet, her heart clenches at his words.

She pulls him fiercely to her and attempts to silence his thoughts with one more kiss.

When he struggles to stand and push her off, her throat constricts and she feels the steady bubble of panic rising to her chest

"Peeta please…" she thinks that she cant stand his vulnerability anymore. She`s always known it. Snow`s ultimate goal had not been to kill her. What he had wanted, was to shatter her soul by watching her boy with the bread suffer.

And the all consuming hate she feels for him is fanned with the truth that they both know, in the end.._he got what he wanted. _

She is shaken from her stupor when she feels him frantically tugging at her arm and pulling her to the stairs. Surprise registers in her grey irises when he leads the both of them to the kitchen; surprise—then fear, because he grabs the kitchen knife propped on the kitchen sink and grasps it so tightly his knuckles have turned visibly white.

"Peeta…" The panic in her chest has bubbled over her being now, and it is all she could do not to flee from the scene, run to the woods and hide from above the steady pulse of the forest she had long since sought sanctuary in.

He moves towards her, and she retracts her steps. _One step forward, two step back. Literally._

Her thoughts are abruptly stopped when he suddenly presses the knife in her palms.

"Cut me." His voice is shaking, but with no doubt.

_What?_

"Cut me, so I`d know everything is still real."

She chokes on a sob as his words overturn her world. Suddenly, the air has become too thick, everything goes blurry, and she cant see, nor think straight. "Peeta…" struggling for coherency, her voice dies into a mere whisper. "You know I cant…" No. Not after having hurt so many people. Not after having him suffer so much. She`d rather go back to the arena than deliberately hurt him.

Her pleas fall on deaf ears because he only presses the knife to her with more urgency. His pleading eyes convey what his now thinly pressed, paling lips cant. _I need you to do this. "_Cut me Katniss. I need you to cut me to make me feel everything is still real."

It all happens so fast. One moment, he is clutching at the knife still, the next moment, her trembling fingers are pushing blade against skin, the next heartbeat and her palm has connected to his cheek in a loud slap and then finally she is collapsing in his arms, her tears and her sobs ringing across the corners of the kitchen and into the empty house.

He barely flinches when she let the cool steel slide against the pale flesh of his arm. Bless her hunter instincts to know how to inflict a wound only shallow enough to only slightly sting, but deep enough to bleed. His eyes momentarily flutter to a close as he reels through the pain and the reality he has demanded for. "Thank you…"he murmurs softly, the desperation in his voice waning.

_CRACK!_ It is almost instinctive when she slaps him. She is terrified, angry, but mostly terrified: of what she had done, of what he had wanted her to do. Of all the things he could have demanded from her, he had asked for the one thing she had vowed never to do. He had asked her to hurt him.

He flinches in surprise, but she doesn't give him time to recoil or recover. In a gasp, she is crashing onto him, both their knees buckling to the ground as he reaches out to grasp her waist.

When his lips move to seek hers, she knows that the worst has passed; but this doesn't stop her fists from angrily pummeling him with weak punches. Her message is clear: _You`re never going to ask this from me again. I am never going to do this again. Not ever._

In the next few weeks, she watches the break in his skin pink and then fade into a pale white, almost a ghost in arm. It's almost gone now, unnoticeable, but she still hates looking at it, even catching glimpses of it… because it stands out in a stubborn testament how she had gone against two of her promises for them.

No more scars.

And no more of her hurting him.

To Be Continued…

A/N: All you kids out there, I hope this doesn't give you any ideas! I don't approve with what our Peeta has asked Katniss to do but I think this could have possibly happened—the way Haymitch had turned to alcohol I guess.


End file.
